


Yours

by spotofpurple



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:57:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spotofpurple/pseuds/spotofpurple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The water moved by itself beneath his feet, softly lapping up the surface of his skin while he lay on the pier. He forgot which city it was, what time and which day, just focused on relaxing by the water. And as always, almost involuntary (but he knew better), Percy thought of him.<br/>OR<br/>Luke gets a second chance. Percy just has to find him living it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yours

**Author's Note:**

> This is very old and was previously only posted on livejournal, but I love this ship and I can't part from it ever.   
> Comments are love >)

The water moved by itself beneath his feet, softly lapping up the surface of his skin while he lay on the pier. He forgot which city it was, what time and which day, just focused on relaxing by the water. And as always, almost involuntary (but he knew better), Percy thought of him.   
***  
Luke had that special way of holding him, even before they stumbled into that almost-love-but-so-much-better-than-that mess. There was magic in his arms encircled around Percy, something extraordinary, a thing so accidental but mouth-watering, so addictive that poor confused Percy didn`t even know what had hit him. Before Luke did, slamming him against the nearest tree and kissing him senseless. Yes, those were Luke`s hands around him, pinning him against that tree, the same hands that earlier showed how to wield swords and later how to touch, caress, tame the wild and frightened beast inside Percy. He was never Luke`s, because Luke was never his, but the hands owned his body and nothing in him could stop the flinch when somebody else tried holding him. It was always the same: hope Luke will be gone by the time the awkwardness of touches appeared. But Luke lingered, dead, unattainable, unreliable, Luke lingered, while the angels that tried fixing him, warm, alive, kissable bodies disappeared right beneath his fingers. And for the life of him, Percy didn`t understand how could he be so attached to his first love ( “Is it love?”, he asked himself sometimes and almost managed to get away with it, before catching the reflection of his own eyes somewhere), that the rest of the world could fade away, even after said love was lost.   
With Annabeth, it was almost as if he could drink Luke, every memory of him that Percy didn`t know about, right out of her, quench that thirst and somehow move on. But it never worked. Annabeth loved Luke, but she loved Percy more and her touch was tainted. So Percy stumbled through excuses and left before the girl could comprehend. But she was Annabeth, the daughter of Athena, and of course she got it. She started hating Luke a bit then, not because he took away Percy from her, but because he took himself away from Percy.   
With Nico, it was almost perfect. Except that it wasn`t, because Nico could never be, could never even pretend to be Luke and it hurt Percy too much to try and equalize them. Nico was night, comforting, soothing presence, demon and guilt free, almost too innocent and altogether too good for him. He yearned for his light to come and blind him. Luke was the sun, dark, twisted, misguided, but still the sun, and after it, everything was dark. A slightly darker figure of a handsome young demigod who offered love to Percy was overlooked and Percy could finally stop lying to himself that he had a problem with liking girls. He had a problem with liking anybody else but the dead-almost-love-of-his-life. But he still wasn`t sure it was Luke he loved. He was thick like that sometimes.   
***  
The water was cold beneath his toes. He wished he could stop thinking about Luke and concentrate on the water, make it everything that mattered. Water was easy, it was familiar and his. Luke never was anything else but not-Percy`s, even during the nights when he used to sneak out of his cabin to snog Percy under the moonlight.   
“It would`ve never worked out.”, Percy tells himself, because honestly, how could it ever? In some normal world, Luke would be the star, the jock, the king, warrior, leader, depending on the period where Percy placed them. Percy would be the one to bring him down, because nobody stays on top for long. Percy didn`t want it and still the task was his, like Luke should`ve been. He would bring him down, always to the ground, wash the filth away and fight for him. And then, he would rise him as high as he could, new, shiny and completely, undeniably, just Luke. Not a trace of Kronos. Then he could watch him shine, and it would be good. In fantasy, it worked. Percy would be a saviour, gladly, but no matter what Nico whimpered under his hands, he wasn`t one. He didn`t save the only one he wanted to have.   
He liked to fantasize about it, him and Luke in thousands of different universes, always drawn to each, always separated. One left in shambles because he had to kill the other.   
“I killed him. You don`t kill what is yours.” 

***  
He got up from the pier and thought about where to walk away next. He was running out of sunsets and damsels to ride away with.   
Nico would strangle him for the `damsel` reference, even though he was the only one who didn`t scream the warrior proclamation of hate toward Luke while leaving Percy`s bed forever. Nico got it, maybe because what Luke was to him, he was to Nico. He hoped not. Nico deserved happiness.  
It was some silly little town in the middle of nowhere, but he had a fuzzy feeling he hadn`t felt for a long time while trying to remember where he left the motorcycle. It was an attempt to do something ridiculous while he was planning to leave the Camp and even though his mother threatened to kill him herself if he even looked at a motorcycle again, he bought himself one and drove into the sunset. Nico murmured something about that being awfully sappy, in a badass sort of way and Annabeth smiled a sad smile that implied she knew why Percy did it. It was very unlike Percy, but very alike Luke.  
It was parked in front of a bookstore, which was weird and surprising, but he vaguely remembered that the fuzzy feeling was the strongest around here when he parked it late last night. The town was empty, but the pier was calling him and he went, as always, submerged in a constant litany of Luke, Luke, Luke ... The parking place was indeed weird. Especially when he turned around to the sound of someone playing with a key at the front door of the bookstore.   
He ground sucked him in, but he was somehow, impossibly, still standing right in front of his motorcycle.   
In front of a confused face of a man being starred at. Luke`s face.  
***  
So they talked. Or, more likely, Luke ( LUKE!) talked.   
“Good morning! How are you? Sir? Are you alright? Did you want something from the bookstore? I`m just opening, you can come in any time you like...”  
Percy stood there gaping and let himself be led inside the bookstore.  
Luke was... himself. Like before Kronos, when the two of them were the fumbling couple making out in Percy`s cabin, luminous, bright-eyed and smiling, mischievous glint in his eyes when he caught Percy checking him over.   
To an unknowing bystander the scene would be laughable, because Percy was dumbfounded and lost, like Luke was and angel who dropped from the heavens and turned the most unlikely man in the whole town hopelessly gay. Which is what happened, give or take a few years.   
But Luke didn`t remember, Percy was sure of it, because nobody could act that well. Nothing. No camp, no powers, no Percy, no monsters, just a guy working in a local bookstore, claiming he bought it after his parents died in a car crash a few months after he turned eighteen and has been living in this town, this very neighbourhood his entire life. He even had a sad story about the college he was supposed to go to but didn`t make it because of the effects of the accident he survived. Percy nodded at all the right places, tight-lipped and frowning the entire time. The only thing Luke got out of him was his name and a few misleading information about where is he coming from and what is he doing in the town.   
“Just passing by.”, he muttered and lowered his head to look at his feet.   
“Really? Maybe you will be passing by again? In the near future perhaps?”, the twinkle in Luke`s eyes could not be mistaken for anything else. He was flirting.   
“You have absolutely no need for that, you idiot. You have me already.”, Percy thought to himself but continued ignoring the couple knocking at the desk in the front of the bookstore.  
“I should get back in there.”, Luke smiled and Percy`s knees buckled.   
“ Yes. You should.”, he squeezed through his lips and turned to go. He was already planning his future years in advance. He will move to this damn town, even if it meant looking at Luke opening the bookstore every morning from across the street and talking to him about irrelevant things. Luke was there. IS there. Percy belonged again, even though nothing belonged to him.   
“Hope to see you around?”, Luke sounded like a high school student asking his first date out and something in Percy fluttered. They never had a chance like this one. It was always surreal, monsters and training and the whole damn Camp, there was never a chance for the two of them, alone and taking it slow. Always desperate, always in a hurry because somebody could see, and what will they do then?   
But now, Luke didn`t remember, scared tissue all over Percy`s soul will never heal, but at least he could pretend. He could act and maybe, finally, get a shot at being with Luke, even for a short while. After all, he feared even imagining that before, beside the water. Luke shouldn`t be here, but he was, and Percy wasn`t about to let him go, not while Luke seemed eager to grant him access. For a while. Because Luke was still Luke, this couldn`t be anybody else, not some cruel joke of destiny, sending him someone so alike that he could fool himself to believe. No, this was Luke, he was there in the way he licked his lips while seducing his prey, he was there in the way he drew the words across his tongue, and he was definitely there in the way he smiled when Percy turned around and smiled for the first time since their unlikely reunion.  
“That might be arranged.”, he said and left the bookstore. He was coming back and claiming what should always remain his. But first, a few Gods had some explaining to do...

***  
He heard the cell ringing five times in total before Nico answered.  
“Percy?!”, he sounded shocked. No surprise there, since Percy promised both him and Annabeth to distance himself long enough for them to continue their lives like he never was a part of them. Six months he spent travelling were hardly time enough to do that.   
“I need to talk to you Nico.”  
“What? Are you all right?”, and he could almost hear the wheels in Nico`s head turning. He was probably asleep, it was 3 o`clock in the morning.   
“I`m fine. But I need to talk to Hades, and I need you to help me.”  
There was rustling from the other side of the line and Percy could`ve sworn he heard a faint moan.   
“Where are you?”  
“I`ll be at the apartment. You`re at Camp, right?”, Percy said, thinking about the place he and Nico rented a year ago, when they didn`t really have a relationship except friendship.   
“No.”, Nico breathed in the phone and Percy stopped pacing by his motorcycle.  
“Why? Did something happen?”  
“No. I just... I left. I`m fine.”  
“So where are you?”  
“My place. I mean, our... Our place.”, he stammered and Percy got the feeling he wasn`t the one he was talking about while explaining about `ours`.

 

***  
And indeed he wasn`t. Nico sat in their living room in the arms of a blonde with a killer attitude and body to boot. Percy would probably be starring, because the guy way gorgeous, but Luke did damage him at that department years ago, so...  
“So what is you business here?”, the blonde, who introduced himself as Jace, spat out vehemently and tightened his hold on Nico`s waist, which was sweet, really, but Percy had a really long and tiring day.   
“ I want to talk to Nico.”, he stated calmly and occupied his place at the armchair opposite the pair. He sent Nico a smile, as a silent way to say: “I am happy for you” and “Nice catch”, referring to Jace. Nico understood, because he snuggled closer to Jace and wiggled his eyebrows.   
Percy silently asked himself how could he ever even think about not staying friends with Nico. He would never look at Percy with that disappointment etched onto Annabeth`s face. He would just understand, get over him and move on. Which was more than fine, even though his boyfriend was glaring daggers at Percy in a way that made him suck his breath in a little too fast, and Percy wasn`t an easy person to scare.   
“It`s fine Percy. You can talk in front of Jace. He knows everything.”, Nico said and Percy chuckled.   
“I bet he does.”  
“ I found Luke.”, he said after a pause and the reaction he saw on Nico`s face was totally expected. His eyebrows shot into the bangs on his forehead and his mouth opened slightly.   
“Percy...”, he started extracting himself from Jace`s arms towards Percy as if he needed to be prepared for the hordes of little green aliens exiting Percy`s head any moment now.  
“ No. I`m not imagining this. Or hallucinating. Or anything like it. I saw him, found him to be more exact and he doesn`t remember. Not the Camp, his origins, Kronos, not...”, and he stopped because the following part was going to take some getting used to.  
“You.”, breathed Nico and Percy flinched.  
“ I know you find it hard to believe me, but I really, really need to talk to Hades. He is the only only who could bring him back, the only one who...”  
“He does believe you. Nothing is impossible.”, Jace interrupted and Percy looked at him in surprise.  
“ And what would you know about it?”, he asked.  
“Believe me, I know. Not the things by the names you call them, but I know...”  
“Look, he is right Percy, I do believe you, but what will a meeting with my father solve?”, Nico interrupted.  
“ I need to know what they did to him.”; Percy claimed and Nico was silent for a while.  
“ I understand. But you can`t go to my father with this. He probably monitors Luke. You can`t know what the Gods will do if they find out you want to be with him. What if they suspect that you want to regain his memories? What if he does remember?”, he spoke finally.  
Percy admitted to himself that he hadn`t really thought about it.  
“ I don˙t know.”, he whispered.  
“Maybe I could try...”, Nico started, but Jace shouted, “No!” and pulled Nico closer to him. Percy wanted to smile, but thought better of it.  
“He is right Nico. I will talk to your father. And besides, I am coming back to him. They are bound to find out sooner or later.”, he sighed, looking Nico straight in the eyes.  
“You`ll never give up on him, won`t you?”; Nico asked and Jace turned his head from them.   
“He`s not asking this because he hopes he`ll have a future with me. It`s Luke, he doesn`t a have a very positive... history. But I am coming back. There is no other place I could ever be, Nico. You understand that.”; Percy said to Jace and then to Nico.   
“Yes. I finally do.”, Nico smiled, caressing the hand hat held him possessively.   
***  
“Your dad is an idiot.”; Percy said to Nico after they came back from the Underworld.   
Jace laughed in their ( Nico`s and Jace`s, Precy realised )kitchen. He was a nice guy, Percy thought to himself, as far as over-protective saps could be nice.   
“I know he is. But what did the tell you?”   
Percy sighed and repeated his conversation with Hades.  
Basically, Luke couldn`t stay in the Underworld, that was a common agreement among the Gods. Too many bad influences , and, ultimately, a bad treatment of a boy who saved the world. (At which point Percy smiled and Hades looked like the sappiness was killing him.) So they created a new life for him, but this time without powers and without anyone he ever knew in his previous one.   
“It was a safe option, no one needed to know and no one was supposed to know.”, Hades claimed.  
“So what now?”, asked Percy.  
“ Well, you are supposed to stay away from him. Or, at least, you were. Aphrodite warned us about your... romantic inclinations. No one believed her. But the fact is that you were drawn to that place. And you will come back. But I hope you will keep that boy in check. Shouldn`t be too hard for you, since he has no powers and everything.”, Hades concluded, looking like he was bored out of his mind.   
“You expect me to make sure he doesn`t come after you? But he won`t. That is Luke there. Not a trace of Kronos. Right?”, he asked, fearing suddenly that he will have to go through that hell again.   
Hades laughed.   
“Yes boy, that is only your sweetheart there, in a state before Kronos. Bright and shiny and new, so maybe you could go to him and leave me alone?”

***  
Percy couldn`t quite believe it, but there it was: a free pass from the Gods. He could go and enjoy being with Luke for a while. Nico talked about the rest of his life, but Percy highly doubted that. Luke was still Luke, and even though Percy was ready to admit his love, as soon as Luke remembers, or even before that, he will be abandoned. Luke didn`t love him, not in his many fantasies, not in the past, nor will he do it now. Not if destiny was a constant.  
“His but not yours”, as Percy liked to put it. And it hurt, but Luke was alive, and it was a pain he could live with.   
***

“ You passed by again then.”, Luke smiled from the corner of the bookstore and Percy felt like he was meeting him for the very first time again.   
“Yes. This town offered some interesting experiences.”, he said and tried that smile that always made Luke pin him to the nearest partly flat surface and have his way with him. Luke blushed and Percy felt like flying off the ground, because nobody, not ever, could make Luke blush. It was hardly fair, this courtship ( as Jace called it and Nico laughed at until he was silenced by a kiss), because Percy already knew which buttons to push to make Luke want him.   
***  
But Percy was partly wrong about those buttons. Yes, they made Luke want him, blush and stammer, but also lean across him seductively on their first real date ( in a restaurant across the bookshop) and made Luke moan the first time they kissed ( which was not at all the first, like the date have been, but also was the first ever in the ways of gentleness and slow-pacing-laziness that got under both of their skins) on that same pier on which Percy spent the first night in town.   
But lying in Luke`s arms after their first time having sex, which took a lot longer than Percy though it would, since they really took it slow this time, Percy couldn`t believe or let himself believe that he was wrong.   
In that exact moment when he was moaning Luke`s name and scratching his fingers across Luke`s back, not quite believing that it was Luke above him, Luke in him, his breath nowhere to be found in the crook of Luke`s shoulder, when it was becoming so much more than he could take, Luke clashed their foreheads together, looked in Percy`s eyes and muttered what Percy never dared to dream:  
“I Love You Percy.”   
And the abyss of love, disbelief, his own cries of so,s o much more than merely sexual pleasure swallowed him.  
“Did you mean it?”, he whispered when they caught their breaths.  
Luke leaned over him, looked him in the eyes, tamed the unruly mess of his hair and nodded. Percy chewed his lip and looked at him.  
“Oh, it`s fine. You`re not the first one not to say it back. You`ll leave tomorrow, I know. Just let me sleep now Percy.”, he muttered, hurt flowing right out of him.  
Percy sat up in a flash.  
“What do you mean, I`m not the only one?! How... how many?!”, he screamed at Luke, who flinched and turned away from him.  
“Much more than I would like Percy. A lot of people pass by. And I hope like a fool a lot too.”, he tried standing up, but Percy stopped him.  
His hands were shaking, his lips trembling, tears brimming over and all he could think about where all those people, coming and going, episodes in the life of Luke, HIS Luke, who desperately wanted to be loved back.  
“Sit down, damn it! How many Luke?”, he growled, not caring that Luke would probably think he was some psycho.   
“Five, six, ten I don`t know anymore. I stopped hoping after a while. But when you stopped and starred that day... There was something there. I wanted you to stay. And you came back. It seemed to me we just... clicked, you know?”; he looked at Percy, sad eyes capturing all of his attention.   
Percy breathed in and out a few times. All those people, they didn`t matter. They shouldn`t matter. He himself had his fair share of flings while he thought Luke was dead. Now is what mattered. Luke loved him. Or he was at least hoping to love him. That left a door open, the only door that were always closed for Percy. He had a chance now.   
“Mine...”, he whispered to himself and then reached for Luke.  
“Percy, I don`t need your sympathy. It`s over, just sleep now, go tomorrow...”; Luke started.   
“Shut the hell up Luke. I`m not leaving.”, Percy said and Luke turned to him.  
“Why wouldn`t you leave?”  
His hand fit perfectly along Luke`s face and the smell of both of them, together, was the most perfect thing Percy ever sensed in his entire life. He pulled Luke close and whispered right above his lips.  
“Because I love you too. And I am yours.”

***  
He really thought it was over, and the only thing left standing between him and Luke were the clothes during the day and the sheets at night. He learned a lot about Luke in the few months they lived together.   
Luke loved it when he sat behind him and pressed butterfly kisses across his neck. He loved classical music, chocolate for all meals, sunflowers and the water flowing all around him. So Percy pampered him, doing the things he never got the chance to do in their previous life, how he liked to refer to it. Happiness was there and he woke to it every morning, lying on the right side of the bed in a tiny apartment above the bookstore.   
Luke loved reading him poetry, long, incomprehensible verses that fell from his lips like music and sounded to Percy`s ears only like two most important things: Love and Mine.   
So when he came back home (Home!) one day and Luke was sobbing into his knees at the foot of their bed, Percy froze.   
Then, agonisingly slow, Luke lifted his red eyes and just looked at him. Percy realized that a sword, his sword, was lying on the mattress and all the sheets were torn, everything made of glass all around the apartment smashed and Luke`s knuckles were bleeding.   
“Please, Luke, it will be fine...”, he croaked, while the only thing he wanted to say was : “Don`t leave me. I`ll go with you wherever you want, just don`t leave me.”  
“No it won`t Percy. I`m a monster! Why? Why did they bring me back?!”, he screamed hugging his knees and Percy broke into millions of tiny little pieces.   
“You are no such thing Luke. You are a hero.”, he said coming closer, asking himself of what was he so suddenly afraid.   
Luke shook his head and buried his shoulders further down.   
“Luke, Luke...”, Percy shook him, until he lifted his head again.   
“You are the love of my life. Not a monster, never a monster. Believe me.”  
“Why?”, he asked, letting Percy grab his hands and lace their fingers together.  
“Because...”; and he didn`t know what to say to him. Or, more exactly, he knew exactly what to say to him, but didn`t have the courage to do it.   
Then it dawned on him, with the clarity of dying: It was either defeat his own fears and help Luke with his, or lose everything. Again. And if Percy learned anything in his entire life is was that the road less travelled was sometimes the best possible choice.   
“Because you`re mine. Always. Even before, when you were... Even before. Always mine.”, he whispered and kissed Luke`s hands, watching his face relax from that painful frown it got into while Luke was crying.   
They sat in silence, looking at each other and trying to comprehend.  
“I hurt you. Everything I did, I hurt you.”, Luke finally said.   
Percy started waving his head, but Luke grabbed his face and brought them closer.  
“Yes I did. And you`re still here. You came back. You didn`t have to, but you did.”, he rambled while Percy`s eyes filled with tears.   
“And that`s why you didn`t believe me when I told you I loved you. You didn`t believe, because then... Then I never showed you how much I loved you. Still do. Always. And again, after the moment I saw you in front of the bookstore... I needed to have you. To claim you. But you didn`t believe...”, and his sobs chocked him.   
“ I do now.”, Percy whispered through his tears, finally accepting it.   
“You better.”, Luke growled and crushed their lips. It was like in their previous life together, like that first time against the tree, but so much better, because Percy now understood that Luke was as desperate as he was.   
***  
“So you actually got it right this time”, Percy heard Nico saying to Luke. Jace was standing right next to Percy, looking at the two men talking in the kitchen.  
“We got it right. Both of us. Together. Now stop talking about MY boyfriend and start helping out with the meal. I want Percy to be satisfied with it.”, Luke said and started chopping something faster.   
“Wow, possessive much?”, Nico chuckled.   
“Tell it to your boyfriend Nico.”  
“Jace isn`t possessive!”, Nico exclaimed and even Percy had to raise an eyebrow at that. Jace looked at him faking anger. He smiled and raised another eyebrow in a gesture that invited Jace to oppose. He shrugged and smiled himself.   
Luke started laughing out loud and Nico, surprisingly, joined him.   
“Well, I guess he is a bit possessive. I am too, so...”  
Luke seemed to have run out of comments because there was silence for a few moments. Percy was just considering coughing to alert Nico and Luke that Jace and Percy were standing right there, but then:  
“ How come you haven`t stayed with him? How come you weren`t possessive of Percy?”, Luke asked. Jace gripped his own hand and paled slightly and Nico fell silent for a while. Percy himself couldn`t believe Luke was asking this. Haven`t they both agreed that inviting Jace and Nico to visit would be a good thing, since they have been pretty isolated from the rest of the world during the past six month of their renewed relationship?   
“He told you?”, Nico asked quietly.   
“He didn`t have to. He said he wasn`t alone all that time and then mentioned some attempted relationships and that he was your roommate... I just connected the dots. Why did you let him go?”, Luke asked in a perfectly calm voice.   
Jace was furious and gripping his upper right arm with such force that Percy was worried he was going to snap his own bones. He didn`t interrupt though, because he was certain both Jace and Luke needed to hear this.   
“ I didn`t let him go. He ended things. It was always you with him. I think he never kissed any of us, not even Annabeth or me, and thought about anyone else but you. And I didn`t make a fuss about him leaving. Why would I? It didn`t feel right to me either. It was forced and even though I loved him, he didn`t love me, not in that way. I didn`t want to be in that kind of relationship. Neither did he, so he left. And I am grateful he did. Everything worked out fine, with you coming back from the dead and not being a zombie and everything else.”, he said, like only Nico could say it, serious and humorous at the same time. Both Jace and Luke visibly relaxed. A few more moments passed and then Percy coughed and pushed Jace in front of himself in the kitchen. Jace`s hands enveloped Nico and Percy smiled. Then he looked at Luke. Luke`s eyes were watery, same blue orbs that Percy loved from the first time he laid his eyes on them and seemed to whisper the most important fact:   
“Yours. Forever.”


End file.
